The present invention relates to a spacer for the food industry useful to facilitate cooling, storage and transportation of packaged meat and the like.
Heretofore, the meat packaging industry has primarily used wood and plastic separators to separate cartons or boxes of processed meats ready to be cooled before shipping or storage. However, the wood and plastic separators are deficient in several ways. Wood and plastic are poor conductors of heat and thus slow the cooling process. Further, the present spacers of wood and plastic do not provide for maximum cross-flow of air. Still further, they are not as durable or repairable as is desired. At the same time, disposal is becoming increasingly expensive due to environmental concerns. For example, wood spacers commonly must be burned as opposed to landfilled. Wood also has the particular problems of splintering and is highly absorbent of liquids such as blood. Further, wood cannot be cleaned and sanitized by conventional methods.
One instance is known where an aluminum separator or spacer was used. The 40 inch by 48 inch spacer consisted of 15 hat-shaped channels, seven of which were oriented transversely to the others and interconnected thereto by rivets, the spacer having a total weight of about 24.5 pounds. However, this spacer presents opportunities for improvement. First, it is desirable that a spacer for use in this application be light in weight so that it is easily handled. Further, there is a risk that rivets will break loose over time and fall into the boxed meat. Hence, it is desirable to use a fastenerless system of attachment which avoids possibilities of contamination, and yet also provides the degree of strength desired so that the spacer does not break apart over time while in service. Still further, it is desirable to utilize materials and material bonding techniques offering improved strength over traditional lower-strength extrudable aluminums connected by rivets so that weight is minimized, and overall performance and service life are increased. It is also desirable to reduce striations and the like to reduce the tendency to entrap blood, meat particles, and the like on the spacer. Additionally, it is desirable to provide a spacer that can be stored in uniformly square stacks without tending to skew, to facilitate material handling.
Thus a device is needed which is light in weight, durable, repairable, cleanable, has high strength, and which facilitates cooling of packages of meat and otherwise improves upon the problems noted.